


Where demons of Shrecklichkeit stalk

by middlemarch



Category: Betsy-Tacy Series - Maud Hart Lovelace
Genre: F/M, Letters, Marriage, Post-Canon, Romance, World War I, Writers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 18:22:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12538284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: She had a vivid imagination; she'd never imagined it this way.





	Where demons of Shrecklichkeit stalk

There was a blank page in front of her and Betsy Willard was not filling it with her loopy, blotted scrawl. She could hardly remember a time when she had held a pen and had an empty piece of paper, white or pale green on the desk’s polished surface, the window for her hazel eyes holding some evocative view—an aspen trembling under its golden burden, a green lake reflecting the shadows of leaves, the sky one cloud or a cloud shattered and pierced by the sun—when words had not rushed to her. Even if they had proceeded politely, sedately, like German matrons after their coffee and cakes, like Julia ascending a stage to sing, she had rarely been bereft as she found herself now.

It was not something she had thought would require sentences. Clauses, subordinate or otherwise, nouns properly matched with verbs, decorated with adjectives she could never resist. Those were what Joe struck out most often when he edited her stories, all those beautiful, delicious, piquant descriptions she could not do without; Miss Mix had been the same about her desire for frills. Her mind now was empty of any; she would have welcomed even the most basic, colors and sizes, the first words she had learned in German, French, that Marco had taught her before Signorina Angela had any need to. 

Tacy had not had any advice. A betrayal, except that her dearest friend’s eyes had been filled with tears and her exclamation, “Oh, Betsy!” had been so much like the last note of an aria Julia would have sung. Tib had had been full of suggestions, practical and serviceable and Carney had agreed that what Tib suggested could work, “if that’s how you want to do it. If you think it will suit you,” she’d said, a hand patting her baby son’s back to try to get him to do something, something Betsy was not sure of until there was a brief, evidently satisfactory eruption, coupled with Carney’s slightly sad laugh. Sam had not written her a letter in weeks and Carney did not want to think what it could mean. Betsy had choked down another piece of shortbread and prayed not to regret it.

There had been so many times when this would have been easier. When she might have made some oblique comment and let her lashes fall, when she could have stroked the long ribbons trailing from one of Kelly’s bonnets and sighed, happily, and known Joe would understand. There would have been daybreaks in their downy bed, evenings beside the fire or on the porch swing with all the stars listening in. She might have begun to knit, something small and shapeless, some pale color, that must have made him ask. She could even have found a way to whisper in his ear as she left Fort Snelling, their faces both shaded by the brim of her summer hat, his hand squeezing her waist but so gently. None of those opportunities had presented themselves; it must have been his last leave, those nights when they had chosen not to speak but only to hold each other closer, closest. Perhaps that wordlessness explained this or perhaps words were in short supply everywhere; Joe’s letters were more frequent than Sam’s but his tone was altered, brief and restrained. He wrote verse, his own and that which he’d copied down from other soldiers, but Betsy felt she couldn’t grasp it, not the way she ought to. She hoped he would not feel the same about her letter.

> _Dearest,  
>  I hardly know how to begin, I’ve been hours thinking of how to say it, and I find all I can write is the simplest truth—I’m, we’re having a baby. In the spring. Just before apple-blossom time and oh, Joe, I pray every night you will be home by then, the war ended, the new world beginning for us. For all three of us, the most wonderful number…_

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, here's my entry in the "whenever I *get* Bettina" oeuvre, trying to take into account Joe's officer training at Fort Snelling. The title is from Jimmy Cliff's stanza about Joe in Betsy's Wedding.


End file.
